The present invention relates to feeders for transporting and feeding hay to livestock. In particular, the present invention relates to a feeder defining at least one opening through which the hay may be accessed by livestock and at least one movable sidewall which may be raised and lowered for loading hay into the feeder and unloading hay from the feeder. More particularly, the present invention relates to a feeder carried by or built as part of a self-driven vehicles and a pushed or pulled vehicles, such as trucks and wagons, respectively.
Hay, including grass, clover, and alfalfa, is commonly cut and dried for use as forage in feeding livestock such as horses, cattle and sheep. The hay is typically cut and baled in the form of round bales or large stacks. Once baled into either round bales or large stacks, the hay is transported to a storage site or to a feed lot with a wagon. Flat trailer wagons are typically used to transport round bales or large stacks to a storage site. Typical flat trailer wagons include a single bed mounted on a running gear having a tongue for being pulled by a vehicle. Once the flat trailer wagon supporting the bales or stacks has been pulled to the transport site, the bales or stacks are removed for storage. Feeding the bales or stacks typically requires the bales or stacks to be moved and deposited by a lifting device such as a skitter into a stationary bunk wagon.
Although the flat trailer wagons work well for transporting round bales or stacks of hay from the field to a storage site or to a stationary bunk wagon situated for feeding the livestock, flat trailer wagons are not well suited for feeding the round bales or stacks of hay directly to the livestock. Because flat trailer wagons lack sidewalls, livestock feeding from the flat trailer wagon often cause the round bales or stacks of hay to fall off the wagon onto the ground where the hay is often wasted or spoiled. As a result, feeding the hay to the livestock requires a loader or skitter loader for removing the round bales or stacks of hay from the flat trailer wagon and a stationary bunk wagon for containing the round bales or stacks of hay while the hay is being fed to the livestock.
To enable the round bales or stacks of hay to be transported and fed directly from the wagon used to transport the hay, wagons have been developed. Wagons include fixed sidewalls which surround and partially enclose the bed of the wagon. The sidewalls extend vertically from the bed and include multiple openings through which the hay may be accessed by the livestock for feeding. The stationary vertical sidewalls maintain a majority of the hay within the wagon during feeding.
Although wagons including sidewalls enable a single wagon to be used for both transporting hay and feeding the hay, such wagons are extremely difficult and dangerous to load. Because the sidewalls are generally fixed, the hay must be lifted above the sidewalls before being unloaded into the wagon. As a result, the front end loader or skitter loader raising the hay bales is dangerously susceptible to tipping. Moreover, because the hay bale is substantially enclosed and received within the wagon once loaded into the wagon, removing the hay bale from the wagon is difficult, if not impossible. As a result, the hay must be fed out from the wagon before the wagon can be used for transporting additional round bales or stacks of hay.
To enable the hay to be unloaded from the wagons, some wagons include a side wall that pivots about a vertical axis to enable one end of the side wall to be pivoted to an opened position. However, with this wagon, the side walls only enable the hay to be unloaded from the wagon where the feed lot or surrounding area provides sufficient room for completely swinging the side wall to the opened position. In addition, where the wagon is long or where the side wall has great mass, swinging the side wall to the open position may cause the wagon to tip or to become unstable.